The Crippled God

stared north. ‘He’s not yet touched on his power. But it’s only a matter of time.’
    ‘He may not have to,’ Faint said, following Aranict’s gaze. ‘I don’t know much about battles, but I can’t see us winning this one.’
    ‘We’re not here to win,’ Aranict replied. ‘We’re just here to take a long time to die.’
    Precious Thimble moved past Faint then, mumbling chaining words under her breath. And there, three paces to the right, stood Amby Bole, his face a stone mask, his hands clenched into scarred fists.
    And the ghost of Sweetest Sufferance spoke. ‘ Faint, I hear an echo of … of something .’
    ‘It’s nothing,’ Faint muttered in reply. Nothing but the sound of all that we are about to lose. What is that sound like? When you hear it, you will know .
    Brys Beddict rode hard along the back of the reserve line. He wanted his soldiers to hear the hoofs of his horse behind them, wanted them to know he was there. So that they would understand that wherever they hesitated, he would ride to them; when they needed the strength of a commander’s will, he would find them. Riding parallel to the ranks, he scanned the formations. Companies held tight in their rectangles, with broad avenues between them. Their discipline remained strong, resolute. There would be nothing subtle in the assault to come, and they had not yet wavered.
    Horns sounded from the front ranks, to mark the last fifty paces from the enemy’s forward earthworks. That forlorn cry sang through Brys and he almost faltered. Is she alive? Do we give our lives to a cause already lost? Is my last gesture to be an empty one? Oh, beloved brother – I could do with some encouraging words right now .
    Better yet, make me laugh. What more fitting way to meet thatmoment when you fall to your knees than with sweet, unchained laughter? The kind that lifts you into the air, high above the grim violence of the land and all its sordid cruelty?
    He was riding inward along the line, now, the ranks on his left, and in moments he would come into the clearing opposite the Perish-held centre, and before him, across the gap, he would see the Evertine Legion closing with the Kolansii lines. Queen Abrastal, such a noble ally you have become. If my brother could but know of this – if your husband could witness this … some futures hold such promise as to convince you they can be nothing more than dreams, delusions built on wishful thoughts .
    You walk the steps of your life, and always that dream beckons, that dream waits. You don’t know if it can ever be made real. You don’t know that, even should you somehow stumble upon it, you won’t find it less than it was, less than it could have been – if only you could have kept that distance, kept it just outside arm’s reach. For ever shining. For ever unsullied by the all-too-real flaws of your own making .
    Aranict. How could you have given me such a thing? How could you have let me take it close, feel it here in my arms, so warm, so solid?
    When those dreams in that unreachable future suddenly rise up around you, how can you not be blinded to their truths? All at once, it is here. All at once, you are living in its very midst. Why then must you seek to pull away?
    He rode on, waiting for the roar of clashing weapons, waiting for the awakening of the power of the Forkrul Assail – and I must answer it, in the only way I know how. And when I am done, I know, there will be nothing left of me . For so long, he had not understood what he was meant to do, but now, with energies crackling the air, it had all come clear.
    Aranict, my love, you now hold the best in me. I pray that, for you, it is enough .
    He bolted into the gap, sawed on the reins of his mount, and swung round to face the massive earthen fort where waited the Perish Grey Helms. But he could see nothing of what was happening behind the banked walls of earth.
    In the centre of the maze of trenches and berms there was a broad marshalling area of packed earth cut with narrow slits to gather the blood of the wounded who would be brought here during the battle. Cutters waited standing close to stretchers, their faces smeared with ash to keep sweat from dripping into open wounds. Their sawing and cutting tools were laid out on skins beside leather buckets of steaming water. In all the trenches that Krughava could see into, herblessed soldiers stood with their eyes fixed on her as she made her way towards the centre, where waited Shield